On Your Mark, Get Set, Hack!

By

Emily Glazer

September 13, 2011

During a "hackathon" last year, GroupMe co-founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht built a group text-messaging service in one 24-hour stretch. In August, the co-founders sold GroupMe to Skype for around $80 million.

Hackathons, once an obscure corner of the computer-programming world, are becoming more mainstream. The contests, which bring together computer programmers for a few days to cook up applications on the fly, are...